Page 21 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

And that made her chest get tight. He had been on horses before, she had taken him out to the ranch that she worked at, but there were limited opportunities for her to do it. Because it would mean picking him up from school and taking him back over there when she was done for the day, and there was dinner and homework and a hundred other things to do.

“It’s time we remedy that, then. Come on. Why don’t you get Strawberries out?” he said to Elizabeth.

“Do you have a really gentle one for him?”

“It’s a therapy ranch. Temperament is what we’ve been focusing on the last few months. Making sure everything is as safe as possible.”

It was just impossible to reconcile the idea of Brody, and anything he did, being safe.

But she realized that the precarious feeling that she had inside of her had nothing to do with Benny or riding. It was the fact that he put her so on edge when he was around. The fact that she felt so precariously close to the edge of some cliff she couldn’t see the bottom of.

Because he’s handsome? You should have started dating a long time ago, you might not be so weird and desperate feeling.

And so, instead, she had moved herself to a place where dating was probably going to be impossible, because she worked with every eligible man in the vicinity.

She decided that rather than asking him for every bit of information she might need, she would hunt around and see how much she could figure out on her own. By the time she got her horse tacked up and ready to go, he had Benny’s horse ready, had a helmet on her son’s head, and was ready on his own mount, who was clearly not a rescue animal of any kind.

He was beautiful. Sleek and athletic looking, black and glossy. And the sight of Brody on the back of that horse...

She was perspiring. Actually sweating from looking at this man. And her heart was beating two times faster than it should have been. She could feel a burning restlessness between her thighs, and she really could not believe that this was happening to her right now.

Carter hadn’t been interested in horses, not ever. She couldn’t recall ever seeing him on the back of one. She hadn’t realized that a hot man on a gorgeous mount was a very particular kind of catnip for her.

She was around men who rode dressage and English-style all the time. But she was not often around cowboys.

She knew how to ride Western, but still, she had chosen English tack, and had decided to go with what she was most comfortable with.

She noticed that Brody had given Benny a Western saddle and reins.

“I hold mine with one hand,” he said. “You don’t need to worry about that just now.”

“The horse is really big,” Benny said, looking up from his position on the ground.

“You’ll be just fine,” he said.

She walked over to her son and instructed him on how to put his foot in the stirrup, a quick refresher, even though he had done it before.

And then she helped him get up on the back of the animal.

“Hold the reins like this,” she said. “There you go, just like that, and if you start feeling insecure, you can just grab hold of the horn on the saddle. He’s the kind that’s not going anywhere.”

“Yep,” Brody said. “You’ll be just fine.”

She wondered if they should have stayed on the ground, and taken him with a lead rope, but she knew that a horse like this would just follow the other two, and would keep a steady pace.

“There’s an arena this way. Let’s go there. The ground is soft.”

Her stomach clenched. She was realistic about the fact that if you rode, you were going to fall off sometimes, but it was disconcerting to think about her child tumbling from a horse.

Brody took the lead, and she couldn’t help but watch the figure he cut on the back of that beauty.

She maneuvered herself so that she was behind Benny, and when he looked at her, there was a wide smile on his face that wasn’t like anything she’d seen for months now.

And she was tempted to say something. To say “See, it’s actually fun.” To tell him it wasn’t so bad. But she was worried that any kind of insertion from her would only cause problems. So she tamped down her own joy, held it close to her chest, and just kept it private.

They rode in circles in the arena, and Benny had the time of his life. Maybe it was because this wasn’t like the gentrified stables they rode at sometimes in the Portland area. It was rugged out here. Wild. And even in the arena, there was a sense of adventure. And she really hoped that he felt it.

They stayed out there until the sun was in the center of the sky and Benny was complaining about being hungry.

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